The Mathews Broadband Advisory Board voted on Tuesday to ask the board of supervisors to approve a plan to erect two county-owned communications towers and seek up to $2.48 million in grant funding to pay for the towers, 18 repeater poles, an underground fiber backhaul, and other supporting broadband equipment. Members also voted to ask that the board extend the county’s contract with consulting firm Broadband Telecom for another six months to a year so the company can continue to provide the county with broadband-related services.

The recommendations will be presented to the board of supervisors during the board’s monthly meeting, which will be held at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, June 22, in the Harry M. Ward Auditorium at Mathews High School.

The vote on the towers came after Broadband Telecom’s President and Founder Jeff Beekhoo and the company’s GIS Specialist and Project Manager Tyler Beekhoo gave a presentation on the Fiber/Wireless Study and Radio Frequency Analysis they conducted...